Editing Pandora (section)

===Between Eve and Pygmalion===
Early dramatic treatments of the story of Pandora are works of musical theatre. ''La Estatua de Prometeo'' (1670) by [[Pedro Calderón de la Barca]] is made an allegory in which devotion to learning is contrasted with the active life. Prometheus moulds a clay statue of [[Minerva]], the goddess of wisdom to whom he is devoted, and gives it life from a stolen sunbeam. This initiates a debate among the gods whether a creation outside their own work is justified; his devotion is in the end rewarded with permission to marry his statue.<ref>David Jonathan Hildner, ''Reason and the Passions in the Comedias of Calderón'', John Benjamin's Publishing Co. 1982, [https://books.google.com/books?id=d7dQAP-tIusC&dq=%22La+Estatua+de+Prometeo+%22+Calderon&pg=PA67 pp.67-71]</ref> In this work, Pandora, the statue in question, plays only a passive role in the competition between Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus (signifying the active life), and between the gods and men.

[[File:Pandora MET DT2160.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|''Pandora'', [[Odilon Redon]]'s {{Circa|1914}} oil painting depicting Pandora as an innocent Eve]]

Another point to note about Calderón's musical drama is that the theme of a statue married by her creator is more suggestive of the story of [[Pygmalion (mythology)|Pygmalion]]. The latter is also typical of [[Voltaire]]'s ultimately unproduced opera ''Pandore'' (1740).<ref>''The Works of M. de Voltaire'', London 1762, [https://archive.org/details/works13smolgoog pp.221-51]</ref> There too the creator of a statue animates it with stolen fire, but then the plot is complicated when Jupiter also falls in love with this new creation but is prevented by [[Destiny]] from consummating it. In revenge the god sends Destiny to tempt this new Eve into opening a box full of curses as a punishment for Earth's revolt against Heaven.<ref>Jean-François de La Harpe, ''Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne: Dix-huitième siècle'', Paris 1825, [https://books.google.com/books?id=eVJCAAAAYAAJ&dq=Pandore+poeme&pg=PA102 pp.102-106]</ref>

If Pandora appears suspended between the roles of Eve and of Pygmalion's creation in Voltaire's work, in [[Charles-Pierre Colardeau]]'s erotic poem ''Les Hommes de Prométhée'' (1774) she is presented equally as a love-object and in addition as an unfallen Eve:

<blockquote><poem>Not ever had the painter's jealous veil
Shrouded the fair Pandora's charms:
Innocence was naked and without alarm.<ref>Charles-Pierre Colardeau, ''Les Hommes de Prométhée'' (1774), [https://books.google.com/books?id=xOrbH_P8MBMC&pg=PA16 p. 16]</ref></poem></blockquote>

Having been fashioned from clay and given the quality of "naïve grace combined with feeling", she is set to wander through an enchanted landscape. There she encounters the first man, the prior creation of Prometheus, and warmly responds to his embrace. At the end the couple quit their marriage couch and survey their surroundings "As sovereigns of the world, kings of the universe".<ref>{{cite web| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xOrbH_P8MBMC| title = Les hommes de Promethée, poëme. Par m. Colardeau| last1 = Colardeau| first1 = Charles Pierre| year = 1775}}</ref>

One other musical work with much the same theme was Aumale de Corsenville's one-act verse melodrama ''Pandore'', which had an overture and incidental music by [[Franz Ignaz Beck]]. There Prometheus, having already stolen fire from heaven, creates a perfect female, "artless in nature, of limpid innocence", for which he anticipates divine vengeance. However, his patron Minerva descends to announce that the gods have gifted Pandora with other qualities and that she will become the future model and mother of humanity.<ref>Script and score on [https://books.google.com/books?id=tD1hAAAAcAAJ&dq=Pandore&pg=PP3 Google Books]</ref> The work was performed on 2 July 1789, on the very eve of the [[French Revolution]],<ref>Cesare Scarton, ''Il melologo: una ricerca storica tra recitazione e musica'', Edimond 1998, [https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22Franz+Ignaz+Beck+%22+Pandore&num=10 p.43]</ref> and was soon forgotten in the course of the events that followed.